Philly Confidential

A woman with her 2-year-old child spit on a SEPTA bus driver and beat him with her umbrella yesterday after he asked her to quiet the screaming toddler, according to police.

The 50-year-old driver asked Tiffany Alexander, 25, to calm her child down soon after she boarded the Route 7 bus yesterday around 3 p.m., a police spokeswoman said.

Alexander started to argue with the driver and came at him with her umbrella, but she eventually sat back down, police said. She then demanded to be let off the bus at Fairmount Avenue and 23rd Street and as she got off, she spit on the driver and hit him over the head with her umbrella, police said.

The driver was bleeding from his head and was treated at Hahnemann University Hospital. Alexander was charged with aggravated assault and related offenses.

The assault is at least the second on a bus driver this month. Today, SEPTA bus drivers protested outside Family Court, where three juveniles who allegedly assaulted a driver on March 17 were to have a hearing.

The hearing was continued but the crowd of about 20 drivers got their first look at the three teens when they were taken from a sheriff's van into the courthouse. The protesters booed the boys as they were led in to the building.

The crowd chanted "What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now," and "We're fired up. We ain't taking no more."

Although the teens were brought to the courthouse, they were not brought before Judge Kevin Dougherty, who granted a continuance in the case at the request of Assistant District Attorney Matthew Sedacca.

Sedacca asked for the continuance because the victimized bus driver was physically unable to come to the courthouse due to his injuries. Dougherty denied motions from the teens' attorneys to have them released from custody.

In that case, the 45-year-old driver of a Route 52 bus was punched, pulled from his driver's seat and severely beaten by three teens who had been unruly on his bus.

The driver's wife, who was in court yesterday and asked that her name be withheld, said her husband suffered a skull fracture, two orbital fractures and a sinus cavity fracture. Although he has returned home, she said he remains immobile and can't take long drives.

"Right now he remains entirely too traumatized to deal with anything," she said. "He's just focused on getting well."